Publicly released records show that embattled former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman visited the White House at least 157 times during the Obama administration, more recorded visits than even the most trusted members of the president’s Cabinet. . .After Shulman, Acting Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank (86), Asst. Attorney General Thomas Perez (83) and Penny Pritzker (76) — Obama’s nominee for Commerce Secretary — have the most publicly known White House visits.

Perez was, at the time, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice. In that capacity, he was the principal Obamanoid point man responsible for, among other things attacking voter ID laws, dropping the charges against the voter-intimidating thugs of the New Black Panther Party, etc. For these and other activities Perez was rewarded by Obama with a nomination to be the new Secretary of Labor in March of this year.

Pritzker, a Chicago native, the founder, chairman and CEO of PSP Capital Partners and Pritzker Realty Group, and in 2011 the Forbes 400 list of America's wealthiest showed her as the 263rd richest person in the U.S., estimated net worth of US $1.7 billion, and the world's 651st richest person. In 2009 Forbes named Pritzker as one of the 100 most powerful women in the world.

Pritzker was a member of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness and also served on the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Oh, and bvy the way, she was also national co-chair of Obama For America 2012 and was the national finance chair of President Obama's presidential campaign in 2008.

They need to be tightly controlled--kept on a short leash, as it were. In the context of the U.S. government, that "short leash" is the Constitution, and the very explicit limits it places on the federal government's power--power, remember, that is borrowed from the We the People. We know the consequences of allowing the government to slip that leash. And finally, if, despite all our efforts, government does become tyrannical, it must be put down, like a vicious dog. Hence guns, and the Second Amendment. And we must be humane about it--bring enough gun.

Markov appears to be the only person to have been assassinated in a ricin attack in more than three decades. That's because to succeed, such an attack requires ricin to be directly injected, or in some other way be to directly ingested, by the victim. That makes ricin a poor choice for a terrorist trying to inflict mass casualties.

Further notes for Threepers. Even in a hypothetical 4th generation warfare conflict in an American context, ricin fails the test as a proper weapon for resistance forces.

A. When mailed in an envelope it is indiscriminate, thus cannot be guaranteed not to harm innocents other than the presumptive target.

B. Regime warmakers (the proper target for 4GW) do not open their own mail, thus they are hardly likely to look on such attacks as frightening. (Who among the Mandarin class cares if postal workers or secretaries are harmed?) The target for 4GW is the decision-making few inches of grey matter between the tyrants' ears. Even a fatality caused by ricin is at most a mere inconvenience and hardly likely to influence their behavior.

C. Because ricin delivered in this manner is both inefficient and indiscriminate it discredits the side that uses it.

D. Then there's the matter of timing, that pesky "No Fort Sumters" business. Such attacks now are also premature and thus morally repugnant and politically stupid.

E. Thus, while ricin letters are perfect weapons for a false flag attack by the regime, they fail the 4GW test a a proper weapon for insurgents.

What is a proper weapon? A precision-guided munition in the form of a rifle bullet targeted specifically at a known decision-maker -- after the regime initiates the war. That is a weapon that they both understand and fear. (See Diane Feinstein's obsession with .50 caliber rifles, for example.)

"Well it's a nice, soft night, so I think I'll go and join me comrades, and talk a little treason."

Probably won't leave now until very early Friday morning. It's a twelve hour haul out there so I'll be getting into town Friday night if things remain as they are, Lord willing and the creek don't rise. Looking forward to seeing all you Texas Threepers on Saturday. Plans after the rally are still up in the air, but I may be able to take my time returning, allowing me to "talk a little treason" on Saturday night and Sunday with my fellow "insurrectionists." If anyone wants to get together for dinner in Temple Saturday evening, email me and we'll see what we can work out.

I'll try to post some more tonight and early tomorrow morning, and keep me and my friends in your prayers for a safe journey out and back.

We are pushing 80 magazines of different types now, including one recent very generous shipment from Arizona which included a goodly amount of 5.56 brass as ballast. (I love those!) Adding an incentive to those who might want to make up the difference, I received this from a reader:

Mike:

It’s been exciting to see the “old” Mike back in action!

Two things have crossed my mind. The first is that you are finally healthy again. That would be a good thing for all of us.

The second was that you weren’t getting better and figured that you’d go out with a bang (no pun intended). I hope it’s the former.

I’d like to offer a challenge to you and the group. When you get to 100 magazines, I’ll contribute 25 virtually new HK91/PTR/SAR8 magazines to the cause! I’ll do it anyway, but it might inspire the “troops” to set up!

Let me know if that’s a good idea that you’d be interested in.

I think it's a great idea and any donations over the 100 target for Colorado will be used in other civil disobedience in other states later in the year.

Let me tell you what this was, and where it came from, based on a conversation I had with a long-time, well-informed veteran of American government intelligence operations the other day.

"Do you think," he asked me, "that this happened accidentally in a vacuum?" Meaning that one day "Gunwalker Bill" Newell, Phoenix SAC, just got a wild hair and decided to invent his own foreign policy. "Things like this happen because of meetings. People sit in meetings and they decide what they want to happen. And then they take decisions, make policy and implement that policy to achieve those ends."

. . ."So," I said, "you're saying that this was a deliberate attempt by policymakers at the highest levels of the Obama administration to subvert the Second Amendment and further diminish the free exercise of firearm rights of honest citizens?"

That statement, as murky as it is, tracks with what I have been told by DC insiders: Like the Gunwalker conspiracy which led to Fast and Furious, the IRS scandal had its origins in the office of that consummate practitioner of "the Chicago way," Rahm Emanuel.

This has already been the subject of some media speculation. The Washington Times carried this column from Bill Kelly: "IRS, AP scandals smell like Rahm."

March 2010 - The IRS field office in Cincinnati, known as the Determinations Unit, begins picking out applications for tax-exempt status for closer scrutiny, using conservative-sounding key words in groups' names as a filter. One of the unit's main jobs is to determine whether applicants obey the political activity limits and deserve tax-exempt status. The unit targets groups with names such as "We the People" and "Take Back the Country."

April 2010 - Determinations Unit managers and staff begin assessing the results of the targeting effort, compiling a "Sensitive Case Report" and summary chart. The chart is shared with the director of the exempt organizations unit.

July 2010 - The Determinations Unit tells staffers to be on the lookout for applications including the name of the Tea Party movement, a loose affiliation of groups which oppose President Barack Obama and agitate for lower taxes and smaller government.

October 2010 - Newly assigned IRS specialist in charge of reviewing applications stops work on cases while awaiting guidance from another unit. The TIGTA inspector general's report points to "a miscommunication about not working the cases while waiting for guidance."

November 2010 - In mid-term U.S. elections, Republicans win control of the House of Representatives, partly on a wave of support from Tea Party activists.

By that time, with the pre-election polls showing an almost certain Tea Party-fueled sweep, on September 30, 2010, it was announced that Emanuel would leave his post as White House Chief of Staff to run for Mayor of Chicago. He was replaced by Pete Rouse on October 2, 2010.

Top IRS officials, whose agency was under investigation for targeting conservative groups, visited the Obama White House more than 100 times over two years while the probe was going on, far more often than in previous administrations and frequently enough that Republicans suspect White House officials knew about the targeting.

Lawmakers now investigating the Internal Revenue Service practice zeroed in on those nearly weekly White House meetings to determine whether an IRS official — or someone higher up in the administration — had approved the targeting and whether it was politically motivated.

The frequent meetings also raised questions about the White House's claims that it couldn't have instigated the targeting of conservative groups because it took a hands-off approach to the tax agency, going so far as to describe it as independent of the administration even though it's part of the Treasury Department. . .

Former Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Doug Shulman visited the White House 118 times between 2010 and 2011. Acting Director Steven Miller, who took over at the IRS in November, also made numerous visits to the White House, though variations in the spelling of his name in White House visitor logs makes it difficult to determine exactly how many times.

It will be interesting to see how many of those meetings were with Rahm Emanuel before he left his Chief of Staff job to become King of Chicago. However many it was, according to my sources the idea began with the man who famously said "You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."

After I'd heard several rumblings of Emanuel's probable involvement in the IRS scandal from other DC sources, I contacted my "long-time, well-informed veteran of American government intelligence operations" who had first mentioned Emanuel's name during the weeks after the murder of Brian Terry had been tied to Fast and Furious.

"I was wondering when you'd contact me," he replied with what I knew was a smile on the other end.

"You want to know about Emanuel, right?"

Yes, I acknowledged, I did.

"C'mon," he chided me, "think it through. The timelines for both scandals coincide, with the 'enemies' list' the tax boys were put to working on beginning after Fast and Furious, but that's just because they always wanted gun control well before they took over. . . remember they had complete control of both House and Senate as well and they didn't think they'd really need to start working an 'enemies' list' until it looked like they were going to have trouble in the mid-terms. . . The IRS was a natural for them. Hell, Johnson had pioneered the practice. . . "(But)Nixon was a piker compared to this Chicago gang."

He added, as if disappointed that I hadn't seen the obvious right away, "You're supposed to be a bright boy, why would you think that a gang that wouldn't blink at the smuggling of weapons that were sure to kill a bunch of Mexican police and civilians and probably end up killing Americans would blink at using the tax boys as political bully boys to protect their majorities in the Congress?"

"So," I asked, "you're saying specifically that this scandal began with Rahm Emanuel just like Fast and Furious?"

"'Specifically?' You bet your ass. Of course he had plenty of help. . . and plenty of direction."

He added, "What did they fear most back in 2010? DISCOVERY. Discovery of Fast & Furious and all the other dirty little secrets that every administration generates. The loss of their majorities would open them up to congressional scrutiny. If you're a cockroach, wouldn't you do what you had to to keep the lights off? . . . Especially if you're from Chicago, it's a no-brainer. That's where the 'enemies' list' and the IRS scandal came from. . . and the attacks on FOX News and the AP . . . Cockroaches don't like electricians either."

The controversial New York SAFE Act suffered two setbacks in the last week as the New York State Sheriffs Association had filed an amicus brief as part of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association lawsuit and the Columbia County District Attorney has decided not to prosecute a man arrested under the new law.

In addition to the sheriff's motion to have their view of the law on the record in the suit against the state, the association, along with five individual sheriffs, are asking to join the suit as plaintiffs.

(A)nother protest against the SAFE Act has been scheduled for June 11. Organized by the Shooters Committee on Political Education, in conjunction with the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, the Erie County Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs, and Oath Keepers New York, this event is expected to be as large as the Feb. 28 rally in which an estimated 10,000 gunowners and supporters took part.

Cuomo’s people tried to downplay that crowd by half, by not including the throngs of patriots inside the Legislative Office Building. But that ruse was shot down by others who provided a more accurate count.

The organizers are hoping for a crowd of 25,000 people at the June 11 event — which isn’t so far off base considering the number of gunowners there are in the state. . .

Investigators said that George Ramirez, 27, was walking home from a nightclub when he was approached by four to five armed men who opened fire on him. Ramirez was also armed and fired back at the suspects, police said. Ramirez was hit once in the back, but was able to kill one of the suspects and wound another.

It is NOT nonsensical from a collectivist point of view. Collectivism is about creating crimes so free men can be subjugated. Looked at from the collectivist point of view, such laws and cases are NOT "nonsensical." They actually make perfect sense -- to tyrants.

Over 10,000 80% complete receivers sold, by just one of the producers. The efforts to stop effective home-produced guns, whether printed or not, are akin to trying to put toothpaste back in the tube. Millions of Americans, without specialized skills or terribly expensive equipment, can build, one way or another, precisely the firearms the forcible citizen disarmament advocates are most desperate to ban. Checkmate, collectivists.

"This book had a huge impact on me," he says, holding up his dog-eared Chinese translation of Friedrich Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom." Hayek's book, he explains, was originally translated into Chinese in 1962 as "an 'internal reference' for top leaders," meaning it was forbidden fruit to everyone else. Only in 1997 was a redacted translation made publicly available, complete with an editor's preface denouncing Hayek as "not in line with the facts," and "conceptually mixed up."

Mr. Yang quickly saw that in Hayek's warnings about the dangers of economic centralization lay both the ultimate explanation for the tragedies of his youth — and the predicaments of China's present. "In a country where the sole employer is the state," Hayek had observed, "opposition means death by slow starvation."

Gotta be honest, I don't know what to make of the dude. However, if he does in fact serve as a John Parker, I got no bitch. I'm of the opinion that patriots, what few are left, need a kick in the ass to get started. We constantly rail about no Fort Sumters. Mostly because of comfort and cowardice, again in my opinion. Personally, at the least I support the guy. Hell, I may even show up to the party depending on how things develop. It's important to remember that Samuel Adams and John Hancock were in Lexington on the night of April 18th. I have no doubt that the initial confrontation was thought out, staged, and executed. I have no bitch with that either. If this gig starts the party rolling, I have no bitch with that either.

A. Captain Parker did not march his unit up to the British roadblock on the Boston Neck and demand entrance. The Patriots contrived a situation over many months, if not years, to make the British come to THEM, not the other way around. That was because they were serious men, cognizant of the weight of leadership responsibility and convinced that while they would not back down, that they would surrender the vital moral high ground of refusing to take the first shot while standing upon their rights as Englishmen under the English Constitution. Get that? SERIOUS men. Whatever egos they had were subordinated to the task at hand. They did not try to execute wild hair ideas by posting a circular on the village green. Every move was fully thought out before execution. What thought, what reflection, what responsibility, what preparation and organization does Kokesh's proposed action demonstrate? If he wants to bet his own ass on such an ill-thought venture that's one thing. Risking others is something else again. But any comparison between Kokesh and Parker is both historically ignorant and insulting to Parker's memory.

To underline the above: Parker was just one small cog in a liberty organization. He was responsible to both his men and to the resistance leadership of the colony of Massachusetts. This was, as I noted above, the result of years of organization and preparation -- political, social and military. If Parker was urged to stand his ground by Sam Adams (as seems likely, since it was a change plan from what he had agreed to with his men earlier in the morning), then it was because Adams convinced Parker that the General Gage had finally stuck his official dick in the moral and political grinder. Remember that the British column was not only a raid for firearms but an attempt to capture the resistance leadership in the form of Adams and Hancock. Gage HOPED to accomplish both without a fight, but in his arrogance he didn't foresee what a political victory he was handing the resistance if it didn't happen the way he'd planned. The BRITISH had marched out of Boston under arms to work their will upon the Colonists. They were plainly the aggressor, not the other way around. No matter who fired the first shot, WHERE that shot was fired was vitally important in the propaganda predicate to the Revolution. Kokesh, if he can maintain his dope-fogged attention span, ought to read and internalize a little more history.

B. Mullenax says: "We constantly rail about no Fort Sumters. Mostly because of comfort and cowardice, again in my opinion." Since I am the principal advocate of the phrase "No Fort Sumters" it is presumably me that he's criticizing as cowardly and comfortable. He is entitled to his opinion. But I say that the Founders would not have thought so. Their entire record from the Stamp Act to 19 April 1775 demonstrates their appreciation of the political and military realities that they faced. How many provocations did they refuse to answer with violence, preferring to take as much time as they could to lay the groundwork for 19 April when they maneuvered the British into dancing to their tune? Many. They used those provocations to continue to build their case against the King and his ministers, to continue to build their own rival political and military structures, Again, they understood how vital it was for them not to take the first shot, nor even the second or third, but to absorb the blows until they were as fully ready as they could make themselves. That was not cowardice, nor addiction to comfort. It was smart and, in the end, through many other trials, tribulations and sacrifices IT WORKED. The historical record shows that the Confederates, by allowing themselves to be manipulated by Lincoln into firing on Fort Sumter, lost whatever moral high ground they had.

C. So, does this make those of us who are risking our asses standing our ground while defying these new laws of King Barack and his minions on the state level (no new federal laws having been enacted) cowards and comfort addicts, or merely smart, responsible people who rightly fail to jump at the latest "call to action" on the Facebook page of an historically-amnesiac, irresponsible anarchist doper?

This is serious business, people, and ought to be prosecuted by serious people who feel the weight of the responsibility that it entails. When you are talking about initiating another civil war that will stack up bodies by the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands or even millions, there is no place for impatience, recklessness or failure to think things through. Contriving to surrender the moral high ground at the beginning of the conflict is to wink at the prospect of the failure of one's own cause. What then IS Kokesh's cause? Anarchy? Yeah, that'll work. But to what purpose and in whose interest? History will judge that. And somewhere the Founders will be weeping in righteous anger and frustration that we paid no attention to their successful template of liberty.

“But here is the bottom line — the media shield law, which I am prepared to support, and I know Sen. Graham supports, still leaves an unanswered question, which I have raised many times: What is a journalist today in 2013? We know it’s someone that works for Fox or AP, but does it include a blogger? Does it include someone who is tweeting? Are these people journalists and entitled to constitutional protection? We need to ask 21st century questions about a provision that was written over 200 years ago.”

In the original Die Hard movie, John McClane is desperately trying to get the police to notice terrorists have taken over Nakatomi Tower. He’s already pulled the fire alarm and called 911, but no one had taken him seriously. Finally, an officer is dispatched to check it out and, after a half-hearted look, he decides there’s nothing happening and starts to leave. It’s then McClane throws a terrorist’s body out a window and onto the hood of the patrol car and says the famous line, “Welcome to the party, pal!”

That character, Sgt. Al Powell, would recognize how the progressive mainstream media feels this week with the revelation the federal government, headed by their guy, attempted to criminalize what they do for a living by claiming Fox News reporter James Rosen was a “co-conspirator” to espionage for essentially doing his job, their jobs.

Hundreds of dead from the Obama administration’s Fast and Furious program didn’t interest the Democrat Media Complex. Neither did the cronyism of “green” loans to campaign donors or the illegal “recess appointments” to the National Labor Relations Board and Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. Neither did the president’s decision to refuse to enforce the immigration laws in any way other than cheering his implementation of the “DREAM Act” without it having been passed by Congress, or his choice to not defend the Defense of Marriage Act which, agree with it or not, is the law of the land.

There are many more scandals and abuses of power that would be 48-point headlines if the man in the White House had an R after his name instead of a D, and that’s before we even get to the disaster of Benghazi and the IRS targeting political opposition to the president. But now that the Obama administration has targeted their progressive media allies themselves, journalists suddenly have perked up a bit.

In the spring of 1866 the Ladies Memorial Association of Columbus, Georgia passed a resolution to set aside one day annually to memorialize the Confederate dead. Additionally, the secretary of the association, Mrs. Charles J. (Mary Ann) Williams was directed to author a letter inviting the ladies in every Southern state to join them in the observance. The letter was written in March of 1866 and sent to all of the principal cities in the South . . . The date for the holiday was selected by Mrs. Elizabeth Rutherford Ellis. She chose April 26, the first anniversary of Confederate General Johnston's final surrender to General Sherman at Bennett Place, NC. For many in the South, that marked the official end of the Civil War.

On April 26, 1866, tens of thousands of Southern women commemorated the first Confederate Memorial Day. Some, however, in the northernmost portions of the South did not participate because their flowers were not yet in bloom. Consequently, they selected dates later in the spring to hold their first Confederate Memorial Days. For example, parts of Virginia chose May 10, commemorating Stonewall Jackson's death. Near Petersburg, VA, they chose June 9, the anniversary of a significant battle there. Others opted for Jefferson Davis' birthday, June 3.

To the present, Southern states continue to have Confederate Memorial days. Though most are still on April 26, others continue to be later in the year.

In 1868, General John A. Logan, who was the commander in chief of the Union Civil War Veterans Fraternity called the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), launched the Memorial Day holiday that is currently observed in the entire United States. According to General Logan's wife, he emulated the practices of Confederate Memorial Day. She wrote that Logan "said it was not too late for the Union men of the nation to follow the example of the people of the South in perpetuating the memory of their friends who had died for the cause they thought just and right." -- Wikipedia.

Here in Alabama both Confederate & Yankee memorial days are taken as a holiday by state employees, although not much memorializing gets done. It is more generally "celebrated" with the conspicuous backyard consumption of pig meat and beer. This occurs in a country and a state which falsely prides itself on being more patriotic than anyplace else. For myself, I have always marked both -- and not with a barbeque.

Other countries and peoples have their own memorial days: the Brits and their Commonwealth countries have Rembrance Day on 11 November, marking the end of the "Great War" with the wearing of poppies, inspired by the poem In Flanders Fields. The Germans have Volkstrauertag, celebrated on the second Sunday before Advent in mid-November. The Israelis have Yom Hazikaron in early April, just before their independence day observances and, of course, Yom Hashoa, Holocaust Remembrance Day, which this year was noted on 8 April.

Culture is transmitted by the collective memory of its people. A people without a memory of who they are and where they came from -- a people without a history -- will soon cease to exist. Collective memory is, of course, not the same as collectivist memory, which serves the ruling elites of whatever party is in power. Orwell's description of the Memory Hole is a classic representation of this process.

Today, we are faced with government-run "schools" whose entire function seems to be the consignment of the Founders' Republic -- and all the sacrifices that were required over the centuries to establish and maintain it -- down the memory hole of the collectivism that animates this so-called "public education."

All the more important, then, for those of us who understand this subversive process to do what we can with our children, our families and our friends to mark and maintain the memory of those who sacrificed to defend the Republic -- and, in the process, to transmit the reasons for their sacrifices.

The bitter battle over new gun laws in Connecticut has passed. But two months later, gunmakers like Mr. Malkowski are still weighing their options, including moving from a state long thought of as a cradle of the American gun industry.

Share markets fell sharply on Thursday as investors piled back into safer assets, unnerved by the twin setbacks of unexpected weakness in China's economy and signals that the U.S. central bank may soon scale back its stimulus program.

The yen bounced sharply off recent lows and German Bunds rose, gaining support from a shift in sentiment that followed Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's comment that the bank may trim its bond purchases at one of its next policy meetings.

David Kopel, a nationally-recognized Second Amendment attorney with the Independence Institute in Denver, first told FOX31 Denver about the alleged incident Saturday. He referred us to Korrine Aguirre, who, it now appears, concocted an elaborate but false story.

We're up to slightly more than 60 magazines now toward our goal of 100, with the receipt of several AR mags and 20 -- yes, twenty -- brand new, in-the-wrap, H&K 91 twenty rounders over the weekend from one patriot alone. Also, one of the AR mags came from Lubbock packaged with a small collection of brass and some "West Texas dirt." Loved it! I also cannot thank my readers for their generous voluntary subscriptions lately. They will make the Texas trip possible.

On the health front, I am now scheduled to get a procedure done after I return from Texas on 6 June to try and clip off the pinhole leak just below my gastric-esophogeal junction. Should this work (and there are various technical challenges why it may not) I can begin to heal the old J-drain hole in my back which intermittently for the past year has blown gastric contents and trapped air out my back. Yeah, I know, pretty gross. Especially when I emit the gurgling sounds of a mini-geyser. ("Oh, don't mind me, I'm just farting out my back.")

Keep me in your prayers, folks. I'll keep soldiering on as long as God feels He's still not done with me yet.

The Office of Inspector General is an investigative arm that monitors the Justice Department. It tried to interview Burke, but he resigned.

The IG said Burke violated numerous federal and professional rules of conduct and it would forward a copy of its report to the Arizona State Bar Association for disciplinary conduct.

And you know what NOBODY is reporting about Burke's criminality? That he was ALWAYSand remains to this dayJANET NAPOLITANO'S LAPDOG. That's why he was picked to ramrod F&F in the first place. He was politically reliable.

While men are statistically more loathe to report their sexual victimization than are women, 10,700 male soldiers, sailors and airmen in 2010 actually reported their sexual assaults. What this means is not totally clear, since men are cannot technically be raped, (!?!?!) despite the term being regularly used in the recent hearings on the matter.

We used to execute rapists, of whatever stripe. Can you really say we're better off now because we no longer do? Heck, with DNA and other forensic advances, we have less reason NOT to execute the bastards these days.

The Stasi perfected the technique of psychological harassment of perceived enemies known as Zersetzung – a term borrowed from chemistry which literally means "corrosion" or "undermining".

By the 1970s, the Stasi had decided that methods of overt persecution which had been employed up to that time, such as arrest and torture, were too crude and obvious. It was realised that psychological harassment was far less likely to be recognised for what it was, so its victims, and their supporters, were less likely to be provoked into active resistance, given that they would often not be aware of the source of their problems, or even its exact nature. Zersetzung was designed to side-track and "switch off" perceived enemies so that they would lose the will to continue any "inappropriate" activities.

Tactics employed under Zersetzung generally involved the disruption of the victim’s private or family life. This often included breaking into homes and messing with the contents – moving furniture, altering the timing of an alarm, removing pictures from walls or replacing one variety of tea with another. Other practices included smear campaigns, denunciation, provocation, psychological warfare, psychological subversion, wiretapping, bugging, mysterious phone calls or unnecessary deliveries, even including sending a vibrator to a target's wife. Usually victims had no idea the Stasi were responsible. Many thought they were losing their minds, and mental breakdowns and suicide could result.

One great advantage of the harassment perpetrated under Zersetzung was that its subtle nature meant that it was able to be denied. That was important given that the GDR was trying to improve its international standing during the 1970s and 80s. Zersetzung techniques have since been adopted by other security agencies, particularly the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).

“We’re not political,’’ said one determinations staffer in khakis as he left work late Tuesday afternoon. “We people on the local level are doing what we are supposed to do. . . . That’s why there are so many people here who are flustered. Everything comes from the top. We don’t have any authority to make those decisions without someone signing off on them. There has to be a directive.”

A former Philadelphia police officer once hailed as a hero and given a seat next to the first lady at a speech by President Obama has been arrested and charged with rape and other crimes.

Authorities allege that former officer Richard DeCoatsworth left a party with two females early Thursday and took them to another location, where they allege he produced a handgun and forced them to use narcotics and engage in sexual acts.

This is in addition to Dickinson’s AB 760, which would impose a five cent tax on every round of ammunition sold in California. Ironically, the tax would be more expensive than the actual bullets. If Dickinson’s bill passes, the cost of bullets in California will go through the roof.

Back in my Benedict Arnold period, we had lots of jokes about anarchists. One I recall was -- There's two anarchists sitting at the kitchen table making Molotov cocktails when one asks, “So, who are we going to throw these at?” The other gets a disgusted look on his face and replies: “What are you, a stinking intellectual?” In the fistfight that results, the kitchen blows up, taking the two anarchists with it.

So much for the seriousness of this idiot; he can’t even concentrate on a mission or objective. So he’ll sell out his bleepin’ precious gun insurrection for a momentary high. Next week he’ll sell out the dopers for the shooters, or maybe the butt jockeys. It’s really all about Adam and His Magic Ego, isn’t it Adam?

Good question. It strikes me that the man is, at least, fundamentally unserious about the deadly-earnest task he has proposed to lead. If all he was risking was his own ass, well, that's one thing. But it isn't.

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Cape Fear Arsenal provides high quality ammunition products in the Southeast U.S. Its products will be primarily sold to law enforcement, and the company anticipates bidding on contracts for the military and state agencies.

We're in monsoon season here in Alabama and various chronic leaks due to no maintenance over the decades have once again manifested themselves. If the rain slacks off, I'll be down at the gun show today, but I can't say where (I don't have a table) or when. I guess just look for the formerly fat man with the scarred up face. ;-)

So far, thanks to generous donors, we have received 21 AR15 30-rounders of various makes, 10 AK 30- & 40-rounders of various makes, 4 M14 USGI 20-rounders (my contribution), 1 CETME 7.62 NATO 20-rounder and two extended pistol mags. This makes a total of 38, so we're well on our way to our target of 100 magazines for me to smuggle into Colorado and distribute in July. There are others on the way, including some that were shipped into my local Bass Pro Shop for pick-up later today. My sincere thanks to all the readers who have so generously responded and I'll keep you informed as the numbers rise.

NOTE: I must say that the magazines which came in buried in a flat-rate box containing almost 1200 expended .223/5.56 brass was a particular thrill. Thanks!

Kokesh’s Open Carry March on Washington is an extremely dangerous development—for the armed protestors involved, the police (and their credibility), the gun rights movement and the gun control movement. But then so was the American Revolution. Just sayin’. You in?

A story reported in March by CBS Los Angeles about a draft ordinance to confiscate “public nuisance clips” has been gaining notice recently, and a commonality many gun rights advocates commenting on it shares is they’re missing a key element, probably because most don’t know the back story.

Most are focused on the outrageousness of demanding such tyrannical action, which are actually unsurprising considering where this is happening, and considering the anti-gun fanatic who proposed the ordinance, L.A. City Councilmember Paul Krekorian. Few are remarking on the hypocritical irony of City Attorney Carmen Trutanich not only drafting it, but adding his personal endorsement.

“We believe this ordinance supports Councilmember Krekorian’s interest in getting high-capacity ammunition magazines off our streets,” Trutanich remarked. “Cities across the country must stand up to America’s gun violence epidemic and do whatever possible to save lives and spare families from the needless tragedy of firearm death and injury.”

Why is this hypocritical and ironic?

“Before he became city attorney, Trutanich's law firm represented the National Rifle Association in litigation against L.A. and other jurisdictions that passed gun control laws,” LA Weekly reminded readers. “Trutanich got the NRA endorsement in 2009, and said at the time that he did not see a need for new gun control measures. When he was criticized on the issue during that campaign, he said that his law partner, Chuck Michel, handled the NRA cases."

ATF agents let a man armed with a gun and threatening to shoot someone walk out of their storefront sting operation in Milwaukee last summer, failing to arrest him or take the weapon, the Journal Sentinel has learned.

The suspect, Bobby Ball - a felon with a violent history - promised to return to the store and sell the agents that gun and others but he never came back, according to sources familiar with the case. Instead he spent four months on the loose, until he was picked up in Minnesota on a drunken-driving arrest.

"This afternoon's Gun Rights Examiner report brings another in a series of rounds scored for the embattled Reese family, who continue to beat back their government persecutors, albeit without the level of support from gun owners they desperately need. I hate to sound like a broken record, or more accurately, I hate that I am forced to keep calling attention to the fact that not enough are stepping forward to do something so simple as to share a link or donate a dollar, and will thus repeat the admonition that if any of us are ever caught up in the government's net, we'd better pray someone will give a damn about our plight."

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

On the efficacy of passive resistance in the face of the collectivist beast. . .

Had the Japanese got as far as India, Gandhi's theories of "passive resistance" would have floated down the Ganges River with his bayoneted, beheaded carcass. -- Mike Vanderboegh.

In the future . . .

When the histories are written, “National Rifle Association” will be cross-referenced with “Judenrat.” -- Mike Vanderboegh to Sebastian at "Snowflakes in Hell"

"Smash the bloody mirror."

If you find yourself through the looking glass, where the verities of the world you knew and loved no longer apply, there is only one thing to do. Knock the Red Queen on her ass, turn around, and smash the bloody mirror. -- Mike Vanderboegh

From Kurt Hoffman over at Armed and Safe.

"I believe that being despised by the despicable is as good as being admired by the admirable."

From long experience myself, I can only say, "You betcha."

"Only cowards dare cringe."

The fears of man are many. He fears the shadow of death and the closed doors of the future. He is afraid for his friends and for his sons and of the specter of tomorrow. All his life's journey he walks in the lonely corridors of his controlled fears, if he is a man. For only fools will strut, and only cowards dare cringe. -- James Warner Bellah, "Spanish Man's Grave" in Reveille, Curtis Publishing, 1947.

"We fight an enemy that never sleeps."

"As our enemies work bit by bit to deconstruct, we must work bit by bit to REconstruct. Be mindful where we should be. Set goals. We fight an enemy that never sleeps. We must learn to sleep less." -- Mike H. at What McAuliffe Said

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.